N.J. Opt-Out Stats: Under 5 Percent for Early Grades, Near 15 Percent for H.S.

High school juniors are opting out of New Jersey's PARCC assessment at a rate nearly three times that of their counterparts in elementary and middle school, according to a preliminary report from the New Jersey Department of Education about opt-outs.

According to a memo from state Commissioner David Hespe that was sent to district superintendents and other local K-12 leaders, there was a combined parental refusal rate for the PARCC exam of 14.5 percent of high school juniors. The refusal rate for students in grades 3-6 was 3.8 percent, while if you add in the 7th and 8th graders, the refusal rate for grades 3-8 is 4.6 percent.

The numbers from the New Jersey department refer to "parental refusals" from the performance based assessment that began roughly six weeks ago in the state. Most New Jersey districts are due to start the end-of-year PARCC exam later this month.

The department stressed that the opt-out rates should not be used to infer total testing participation rates for districts, since the latter can include other reasons for absences from tests such as student illness. The opt-out rates I cited above refer to the 98 percent of PARCC exams administered on computers; 2 percent of the tests were paper-and-pencil exams, but opt-out rates for those tests were not available.

In the memo, Hespe said that "in spite of predictions to the contrary," opt-out rates in the elementary grades were low, and that the higher opt-out rates in high school could be linked to the fact that students are not required to pass PARCC in order to graduate.

David Saenz, a spokesman for the New Jersey department, told me that it's the first time the state has calculated such opt-out rates for state exams. He added that he expects those numbers to shift slightly as the department sorts through them further: "We just wanted to give the superintendents in the field some snapshot numbers."

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